This invention relates to containers, and particularly to containers for liquids and beverages such as milk.
Liquids and beverages, and in particular milk, have generally been bottled in standard size containers such as one-quart, half-gallon and one-gallon size. Standard size packing cases have been developed to efficiently hold and transport a number of these individual containers from the packaging or bottling plant to the retail outlets. In particular, a standard size packing case has been developed to hold and transport four individual one-gallon containers and is in extensive use throughout the dairy industry. Recently, the concept of packaging liquids such as milk in intermediate size, three-quart containers has developed. Typically, a scaled down version of the standard one-gallon container has been used as the three quart container. The result of this practice has been that a standard four gallon packing case can still hold and transport only four of these scaled down containers and thus, only 12 quarts of milk can be carried in the case instead of the 16 quarts it was designed to carry when filled with one-gallon containers. This is quite inefficient since a delivery truck can carry only a fixed number of cases and thus can deliver only three quarts of the previous amount of milk per load. Accordingly, there has developed a need for an improved container or bottle which can better utilize the space available in the presently used four gallon size packing case and would not cause the industry to cast aside its stock of standard size carrying cases and develop a new case just for the scaled down three-quart containers.